Field of the Disclosure
The present disclosure relates generally to processing systems and, more particularly, to thermal properties of processing systems.
Description of the Related Art
A processing system, such as a system-on-a-chip (SOC), often incorporates multiple compute units onto a single substrate. A compute unit typically includes one or more processor cores that share resources such as a floating-point unit, one or more caches, branch predictors, a physical layer interface to external memory, and other front-end logic. For example, an accelerated processing unit (APU) may use a single substrate to support and interconnect multiple compute units such as central processing units (CPUs) or graphics processing units (GPUs). Some processing systems may also stack multiple substrates on top of each other and interconnect them using through silicon vias (TSVs). Operation of the components of the processing system generates heat, which raises the temperature of the processing system. The processing system is constrained to operate at temperatures within a thermal envelope that is typically indicated by a parameter referred to as “a temperature design power (TDP)”. Operation at temperatures outside the thermal envelope (e.g., above a maximum temperature threshold) can damage the processing system.